


The Game Is On (LJ community) entries

by gayalondiel



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Challenge Response, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-09-01
Updated: 2011-10-09
Packaged: 2017-10-23 08:24:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayalondiel/pseuds/gayalondiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of my entries for the TGIO challenges over at thegameison_sh.livejournal.com.</p><p>Each is a discrete piece, unconnected to the others or the rest of "my" canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Salutis Auctor Optime

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** The Holmes characters fall in the public domain: This version falls under the creative control of Messers Moffatt and Gatiss, and the BBC. No ownership is implied or inferred. This is done for love only.
> 
> Cycle Three, Prompt One: Spring

Three years after the explosion that took Sherlock and Moriarty. Two years after the chase for Moriarty’s associates was wrapped up and the last taken over by Europol. Almost a year after the trials. Lestrade barely realised it was April until he found his P60 on his desk, accompanied by a letter. Ripping it open he found he was being awarded the Queen's Police Medal.

He knew who was to blame for this, although even John had been vague about the man’s actual job. Rather than feel proud it just made him tired. Sherlock and John should be being feted, but one had been blown to bits and the other was eking out a quiet existence that no longer quite qualified as living.

He wondered if they’d give him early retirement instead.

* * *

Sarah strode through the field, wishing for a moment that John had accepted her invitation to visit her friends’ farm as she did every year. He had sensibly demurred.

They had been on-again, off-again for three years, the trauma of losing Sherlock and John's own injuries parting them, the echoes of grief bringing them together again. They had split on professional grounds when John became an associate, but had fallen back into bed several times since, even after the last remnants of the trials and their excuses had been swept away. Enough was enough.

There was a commotion from the lambing shed and she hurried across the dewy field, not wanting to miss the big moment. Things always seemed simpler when life was being brought into the world

* * *

Sally entered the consulting room, the positive result hammering in her brain. Her GP was away, so she had been offered an associate and surprised herself with her choice.

The doctor was very kind as he arranged her referral to the women’s centre at the hospital. She had expected judgement, possibly even condemnation and maybe that was why she had come to him, but he was thoroughly professional.

But at the last minute he caught her hand and murmured that she was worth so much more than Anderson.

Three weeks later she was at the Easter Vigil, clutching a rosary she hadn't used in years. As the light spread through the cathedral she wondered if she would ever be forgiven, and remembered the shadows in her doctor's eyes.

* * *

Anderson wrapped his arms around his wife against the chill of dawn as the _Hymnus Eucharisticus_ flowed from the tower. They hadn't done May Morning for years but Susan wanted to come back to Oxford, where they courted. She had been talking about moving back out here.

He couldn't deny that it was a nice idea. London was fine but Oxford - the gown side - was beautiful. Things had been difficult recently, a lingering pall hanging over the team. Lestrade was talking about taking a desk job; Sally had been fractious for weeks before telling him where to shove it. It was time for a fresh start.

* * *

Mycroft had insisted on having Sherlock's remains spirited away and cremated, family only. John had not been allowed to say goodbye and it nettled him to the point of refusing Mycroft at every turn since then. He and Mrs Hudson had made a space in a local community garden and buried Sherlock's skull and a couple of other possessions, planted some flowers. Sherlock would have called it needlessly sentimental, but it was there to give John somewhere to go to grieve when he moved out of Baker Street.

But he had not moved. The flat was on the market but everyone who came to look was mysteriously put off. He was certain Mycroft was behind it but could not work out why. Mycroft had been trying to contact him again but he no longer cared for the hassle.

It had been a cold winter and he hadn't been out to the garden much, but now spring was here and he came to tend the flowers as they grew. New life. It left a bitter taste in the back of his throat.

The third spring since Sherlock died, the second he had been tending the flowers. He wondered how long it would be before returning life meant something to him again.


	2. Two Gunshots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cycle Three, Prompt Two: Change one thing from canon
> 
> Summary: John stays with Soo Lin, until Sherlock hears two gunshots echo through the museum.
> 
> Warnings: Character death

Two shots echoed through the museum. Not nearby, not in the shadows Sherlock had been ducking through trying to track his target, but from the direction of Soo Lin’s hiding place. Where he had left her, John by her side.

Two gunshots.

An unfamiliar and intense chill of fear filled him and he sprinted towards the sounds. On the edge of his vision a dark figure vanished through a window; later he would be surprised to realise that he had completely ignored it. He rounded the corner and saw two bodies collapsed together on the floor, oily fluid pooled around them and spreading. One was panting harsh, pained breaths. The other was silent and still.

Disregarding all thoughts of preserving evidence, Sherlock dropped to his knees in the pool of blood and pulled the breathing form into his arms. It gave a low moan and panted harder. One arm moved to clutch convulsively at the gaping wound in the side of its torso, from which more blood was pulsing in torrents.

“John?” he hissed, desperate. He cradled him with one arm across his lap, and pressed his other hand over John’s, trying in vain to stem the flow. John rolled his head back and their eyes met.

“Soo Lin?” John’s voice was weak. He coughed, and blood flecked his lips. Sherlock looked over at her still form. Her eyes were open and dull. Lifeless.

“She’s dead,” he said.

John’s eyes flickered and he moaned again. Sherlock recalled how he had found them, realised John must have interposed himself between her and the first bullet.

“Not your fault, John,” he said. “Hold on now. Hold on.” Shifting so he could support John against his knees, he tugged his phone from his pocket and dialled in the security code, but his thumb shook and hit the wrong keys. John raised a hand, halting him. He was waving a book at Sherlock, his arm shaking uncontrollably. Sherlock snatched the book from him without looking at it.

“Why...?” he asked, confused.

“The key.” John’s breath was coming faster and more shallow now. “It’s the key. The code.” His eyes drifted closed.

“It doesn’t matter!” Sherlock could hear the frantic tone in his own voice. He dropped the book to the floor and returned to the phone, getting the code right this time. John was fading. “It’ll wait. Hold on, I’m calling an ambulance, you’re going to be fine, just hang on. Look at me. John. John! Look at me!”

John’s eyes fluttered open again and met his. He smiled weakly.

“It’s been fun,” he said.

Sherlock blanched. “Don’t you _dare_...”

“I wouldn’t have missed it.”

“Hold on, damn it!”

“...being useful again.”

“John...”

And now it was his own voice that was weak, broken. John’s head lolled back, his eyes closed once more. His tongue drifted across his lower lip and smeared the scarlet blood across his paling skin.

“Sherlock,” he breathed, and was still.

Sherlock held his own breath waiting for John to inhale, frozen in disbelief for what seemed like hours. John did not move.

Finally, numbly, Sherlock raised his phone. Somehow he managed to unlock the screen again and dial Lestrade’s direct line. Not Dimmock. John liked Lestrade.

Had liked him.

Numbly he explained: murder, two bodies in the basement of the museum. He requested a forensics team. Lestrade was asking questions and he ignored him, hanging up just as he heard him ask to speak to John instead.

And then there was nothing left but to wait. Wait, clinging to John, like he could somehow impart life to him by sheer force of will. Like he could somehow stop him from slipping away, even though he was already gone.

And there, alone in the dark, Sherlock was finally free to whisper words he had never dared say, which his friend would now never hear.


	3. The Body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cycle Three, Prompt Three: Poems (various)
> 
> Summary: John died at the pool. Everyone told him, he saw the body. But something didn't add up...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Discussion of character death

John was dead.

Killed outright, dead on arrival.

Gone.

Sherlock closed his eyes and turned away from Mycroft's sympathy, shutting out the hospital room. In his mind he saw clouds of brick dust, John hauling himself to his feet, kneeling before him, gasping _Hold on, Sherlock_ , as the world faded to black...

“He’s not dead,” he whispered.

***

The moment he was discharged, Sherlock headed for the mortuary. Molly met him outside the door. She murmured, “They wouldn’t let me take care of him,” and he found himself hugging her tightly before he passed her and swept in.

“Mr Holmes, is it?” said the coroner coolly. “The body’s through here.” He led him over, flicked the sheet on the gurney back, and there was John. Bruises on his face, torso and arms, nothing more. He could be sleeping.

Sherlock reached out, ready to see him wake, eyes clear, whispering _hold on, Sherlock..._ He was almost touching him when the coroner said “No contact. Family request.”

Sherlock stayed for over an hour with the body. Watching, waiting. Twice he thought he saw the twitch of a muscle beneath his skin. He forced himself to remember.

“Sorry for your loss,” the coroner in a bored voice.

***  
Lestrade and Mycroft sat up with him the night before the funeral. They drank brandy and spoke about John. Sherlock sat in silence, his mind spinning.

John kneeling before him, talking.

Brick dust on his eyelashes. Eyes bright, clear.

Cold and dead on a mortuary slab.

Not cold. They hadn’t let him touch the body.

Small circular bruises.

He was on his feet and down the stairs before the others could call his name. Already hailing a taxi when Lestrade barrelled out the door and made him wait for Mycroft.

“He’s not dead,” said Sherlock. “I saw him afterwards. He was fine. In the mortuary they wouldn’t let me touch him. Why? Because he was warm. There are circular bruises on his upper arm and inner elbow. Bruises consistent with injections. He had the same thing from his ‘flu shot.”

“Sherlock,” began Mycroft.

“Unless you shoot me you will not stop me,” he snapped. “Come, or leave.” Mycroft opened his mouth to speak but stopped at a glance from Lestrade.

“We’ll stay with you,” Lestrade said.

***

There was one attendant in the funeral home. Lestrade went for his badge, Mycroft prepared to pacify him. Sherlock struck him with a single blow and knocked him out cold.

Ignoring them he crossed the chamber and wrenched the coffin open. John was pale and quiet, wearing his dress uniform. He was still.

Doubt twisted Sherlock’s heart. Was he wrong? He brushed his cheek - not cold, not warm; felt at the carteroid artery - a flutter, or the rush of his own pulse? Sherlock squeezed his eyes against the tears that had gone unshed.

He heard Mycroft pull out his phone. Sherlock waited for the call, the fallout. But Mycroft was silent, and Sherlock opened his eyes to see him holding the device out, touchscreen face down, a centimetre or two away from John’s face.

He turned it over to reveal a fogged screen.

Then there were phone calls. Lestrade to Scotland Yard for containment and an ambulance and hurry, damn you. Mycroft to the Home Office, SOCA and Harry. Sherlock watched, and finally saw it. The tiniest flicker of an eyelid.

He cupped John’s cheek with one hand, and gently drew back his eyelid to reveal movement, flickering and trying to focus. He saw the exact moment John locked on to his own face, and Sherlock tried to smile, but found there was a tear on his cheek instead.

 

***

The coroner was arrested in minutes. He had a fatal heart attack soon thereafter. The attendant died in an accident as he was brought in.

Molly found a stash of drugs in the mortuary: barbiturates, anaesthetics, Amitriptyline. She called Lestrade, handed them over, and Donovan held her while she sobbed.

Anderson, in a startling moment of observation, found the tiny webcam embedded in the lid of the coffin.

Sherlock sat up with John every night until neither could possibly stay awake. On the fourth night John fell asleep. Sherlock dimmed the light and shut his eyes for a moment.

After waking to the sound of terrified screams, he resolved never to switch the light off again. Even though those screams were the only sound John would ever make.


	4. Before My Helpless Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cycle Three, Prompt Four: Phantom touch
> 
> Summary: In his dreams, John walks abroad in war zones, a ghost observing the soldiers still there. After a while, he finds that he is not the only one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Discussion of war, brief but including current conflicts involving UK and NATO forces.

John sleeps, and wakes in Afghanistan.

The first time, he thinks it’s a dream, until he realises that it’s now, today, tomorrow. He sees a patrol in the distance, and feels the thrill of anticipation moments before the IED goes off and one of the trucks veers off the road.

He runs for them and gets there in time to see Withers, a friend of his from a lifetime ago, pushing himself painfully from the ground, blood spurting from his leg. John shouts his name and runs to help him, but when he gets there his hand seems to dissipate as he tries to grab Withers’ arm, and he feels only the ghost of body heat.

He is there, but cut off, and can only watch as they patch themselves together, all but one. He stays until help arrives and accompanies them back to base.

Just as he gets there he turns and sees a familiar silhouette watching him, and then he wakes.

He flicks on the radio and hears that one young soldier has been lost to a roadside bomb in Helmand.

~

Every night, John keeps unseen communion with his brother soldiers. He accompanies patrols, sits talking to sentries, and watches men hold back the tears at letters from home. Once he watches a patrol get jumped by insurgents, and remains behind with the youngest who has been hit and is bleeding profusely. He reaches out to stem the flow, remembers that he can’t - and then a pale hand is taking his, a cold touch that tingles, not real but more substantial than a ghost.

He looks up into Sherlock’s eyes.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are _you_ doing here?”

John gestures to the young man. “I’m keeping people company.”

Sherlock smiles. “And I you.”

When John wakes, the MOD website tells him that a young man has been wounded on patrol but will survive.

Sherlock notices nothing.

~

After that Sherlock accompanies him. Normally Afghanistan, watching John’s friends fight the fight he can no longer be part of and rest a comforting hand on his shoulder with phantom pins-and-needles.

Once they are in the dark on a landing strip, figures scurrying back and forth to a small squadron of planes, panic in the warm night air. They remain all night, watching men John recognises but can’t name, and he slips a hand into Sherlock’s as a look of confusion and maybe fear clouds his features.

“Where are we?” he asks.

“The Falklands,” John replies. He’s never been but he knows. They stand shoulder to shoulder all night as the Army and RAF flitter about, and offshore a Royal Navy destroyer patrols relentlessly.

In the morning the news insists that everything is fine. Sherlock mentions that Mycroft has left the country unexpectedly, and John wonders how he will like Argentina.

~

Another time they are flying in an Apache over Libya, as Dave, his crush from the OTC, leads his Army Air Corps team through hostile skies, then back to the launching craft. They slip away discreetly as he returns to his bunk, but he seems for a second to see John from far away. John knows who will be in Dave’s mind tonight and hopes the younger, more arrogant and attractive memory of him might bring the man some comfort. Sherlock pulls him into the empty wardroom, all chintz and uncomfortable chairs, smiles at him and presses a cold tingling kiss on his lips, looking as though he’s been waiting for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place.

John wakes in a sweat and can’t bring himself to look Sherlock in the eye all day.

~

Tonight they are back in Afghanistan, under the stars, sitting leaning against each other after following a patrol all night, fingers entwined with an intimacy that doesn’t exist in the real world. John finally voices his confusion.

“I don’t get why you’re here.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. It’s my dream, my history. Why are you here?”

Sherlock sits up abruptly, and John only just catches himself before sprawling on the sandy road.

“John...” he says slowly. “This is my dream.”

John is about to reply when the world dissolves and he’s waking up, confused. He stares at the ceiling, wondering what his brain is playing at, and then the door creaks and Sherlock, wearing only pyjama bottoms against the oppressive summer night, slips into the room.

“I was dreaming about you,” John says.

Sherlock smiles. “And I you.”


	5. Bring Them Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Undercover

They haven't drifted apart, he has told himself so many times. Brothers in bond, they are still as close as they once were.

He always hears the lie.

They still see each other regularly, and occasionally chase criminals around London together, just as before. But each has his own existence now that they are not living in one another's pockets, and both pretends to be content with that. Marriage, bereavement, loss and years apart have whittled away at the cord that once held them so tightly together. Anyone would forgive him for missing the clues.

Still, he should have known. Neither of them could ever stay away from trouble.

He was busy with work, staving off growing loneliness with frenzied activity. He knew the people around him worried, and he couldn't care less. The only one whose opinion mattered knew enough not to speak, just to be there when he could, doing what he could, around the busy work he filled his own life with these days. Staving off loneliness. Pride, or maybe fear, kept them both from admitting that where they should be – where they needed to be – was back with one another, living and working and just existing together.

Where they belonged.

It might be expected that two lonely men, worn by years of grief, each mirrored in the other, would come back together out of mutual need. That was before you even considered the friendship, the history and the heart that underwrote everything between them, even as the cord stretched thinner. But neither of them had taken that first step, the admission that he needed someone apart from himself, and the cord was so very thin now. The tension was unbearable. It would snap back, bring them together once more in the blink of an eye; or it would break.

He doesn’t know which it will be, he can only hope. He knows he's been neglectful of the friendship; he knows he's not the only one. He hopes that awareness of their common fallibility will be enough to disperse the lingering sense of blame, of who let go first, who let the drift between them get so wide.

Mycroft's call came out of the blue, short and to the point. His best friend had been roped into some scheme that was too shady for official government lines, to be kept quiet from the police, from all their contacts, even from him. Very top secret, Mycroft had said. And now his cover was blown, his face known by some quirk of chance, some acquaintance or associate or maybe even someone who had read the old cases on the damned website, or the blog. Either of them could be blamed for that.

It doesn't matter. The cover is blown, and someone has to go to the rescue. Rescue a man, a friendship, a life together, and bring him back home, not to the cold flats where they both live in isolation, but Baker Street. He knows Mrs Hudson has been holding the flat for them for a year or more, even though she can't really afford to. She sees more than either of them, in her own way.

He rifles through his wardrobe for some appropriate costume, wondering how best to make himself unobtrusive, to slip through the shadows until he finds his mark. How long since he dressed to someone else's requirements? Putting on a disguise feels like stepping into a uniform, and it's been years since he wore either. Today it's necessary, and if he can just get this right, tomorrow they can argue about whether either of them ever puts himself in danger for a case again.

Both of them will, of course.

He checks his appearance one last time. Unobtrusive, unremarkable. He can’t risk being found to be carrying a weapon. He pockets the pay as you go phone that only two men have the number for, and leaves his own on the coffee table with a timed text message for Lestrade alerting him if he's not back in 24 hours. If they’re not back. He can’t return alone. He won't.

Please let it be all right, he asks. Please bring him home safely. Please bring us both home, together, where we belong. He wonders who he’s asking, then dismisses the thought.

He asks again for good measure.

And then he's gone. On a mission to find his friend, save them both, and bring them home.

Together.


End file.
